Mass confusion. No matter how you view Tuesday’s blockbuster in Berea, with giddiness and joy that two of the three stooges are gone, or with skepticism and wonder at the timing of the latest demolition of the Browns’ front office, you are witnessing mass confusion.
Jimmy Haslam made certain of that.
There are far too many questions and layers to this Titanic deck chair rearrangement to offer any kind of, ahem, “streamlined” analysis of the situation, so let’s proceed with this column in the same manner the Browns run their organization — with random, scattershot ideas lacking any true direction.
-- It was the best of times; it was the worst of times all in a single day. There’s no doubt that the Browns are a better, more attractive franchise with the unlikeable, eternally-controlling Joe Banner and his personal pet, Mike Lombardi, leaving their key cards at the door in Berea. The time to send them to their offices with cardboard boxes and a human resources officer, however, was back in early January. Not Tuesday.
In less than 16 months, Haslam did the following:
-- Hired Banner and Lombardi to turn his new franchise into a winner Cleveland could be proud of.
-- Allowed Banner and Lombardi to hire Rob Chudzinski, praising him as the best young coaching mind in the game.
-- Allowed Banner and Lombardi to fire Chudzinski 11 months into the job, claiming the team wasn’t improving enough.
-- Allowed Banner and Lombardi to conduct the longest, most embarrassing coaching search in recent NFL history.
-- Allowed Banner and Lombardi to hire Mike Pettine, a coach that no other teams even wanted to interview and whom they could have hired two days after firing Chudzinski — if they really believed in him.
-- Offered full and unconditional support to Banner in the face of heavy local and national criticism.
-- Fired Banner and Lombardi for doing a lousy job, even while praising them to the heavens during the news conference announcing their firings.
Did someone say dysfunctional?
-- Lombardi’s departure was a foregone conclusion when Ray Farmer turned down the offer to become the GM in Miami. No executive with Farmer’s acumen and reputation in this league is going to turn down a chance to be the boss in Miami in order to continue playing second fiddle to a stooge in Cleveland. Despite both their denials, Haslam had to have promised Farmer the job weeks ago, before he said no to the Dolphins.
n While Haslam will be appropriately lauded for cutting the cord with Banner, the decision to part ways with him at this juncture only fuels the perception that the new owner is in way over his head. The effusive praise offered to his soon-to-be-former CEO at the news conference was as disturbing as it was confusing.
“Joe has done a superb job putting the right people in place for the Browns,” Haslam said with a straight face in Berea.
It was apparently lost on him that the two most important people he had put in place, Chudzinski and Lombardi, had just been fired for not being good enough.
-- If anyone has the answer as to why Banner will be allowed to assist in the “transition” for a few months before he’s gone for good, please call Berea immediately and inform Haslam, who apparently doesn’t know. Or at least isn’t telling.
-- Pettine, who may still be punching himself in the face for hitching his horse to this wagon, will now report to a man, Farmer, who did not hire him. A man who did not interview him. A man who may or may not have any of the same philosophies that he does. And a man who just may decide 12 months from now that he wants to choose his own coach. This is precisely what he would have done this time, if Haslam hadn’t executed his master plan for restructuring the team’s leadership in reverse.
-- Haslam continues to blame the Cleveland media for creating the “mythical” toxic environment that his franchise has become known for. He claimed on Tuesday that heavy hitters around the league praised his exemplary organization during Super Bowl week, highlighting his solid fan base, many draft picks and salary cap space. As if anyone with the money and/or the stroke to get into a room with Haslam is going to walk up and tell him what a disaster of a franchise he’s running. But it’s the Cleveland media’s fault.
-- When Banner hired Lombardi, much to the dismay of Cleveland fans familiar with his history, he played the same card as Haslam: executives around the league told him what a home-run hire he had made, snapping up the great Lombardi, who would be a huge asset for any franchise lucky enough to land him. The local critics didn’t know what they were talking about. This, despite the fact that Lombardi was unemployed by any team, languishing at the NFL Network for five straight seasons. Anyone else wondering how many of those Lombardi fans around the league will be competing for his services now that he’s available once again?
-- Haslam’s ego had to play at least some role in this shocking house-cleaning. One does not become a billionaire, and have what it takes to buy an NFL franchise, without having an ego. The odds are pretty good that being publicly ridiculed as one the “Three Stooges” by the local media did not sit well with him. He probably stewed over that characterization for weeks, before finally boiling over and firing the two men responsible for his personal embarrassment. Don’t think it didn’t get to him when Banner referred to the joke a second time, when announcing Pettine as “Curly” joining the existing stooges.
-- Brighter days are indeed in front of the Browns, if only for the absence of the two radioactive front office figures, but until Farmer and Pettine show their mettle, the air of dysfunction created not by the media, but by Haslam himself, will remain.
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Bob Frantz hosts “The Bob Frantz Show” on WTAM-AM 1100 from 7 p.m. to midnight weeknights, and following Cavaliers, Indians and Browns games. Follow Bob on Twitter: @FrantzRants.